Sometimes, comic artists are famous (or, more likely, infamous) for having [[OnlySixFaces very little differentiation among their characters]].

Excellent artists, though, [[CastOfSnowflakes can create a vast array of physiques and faces for characters]], thus making them easily distinguishable from each other; these artists are masters of character design, or so it seems...

It's only until you get to the artist's collected works that you realize that he is halfway cheating - using some of the same characters over and over again, in different works, as though they were "actors" playing "roles".

This doesn't always detract from an artist's work, however, as this is often done purposefully when one character in a story plays a similar role as they did in an earlier one; in fact, knowing that this is the artist's style can greatly help the audience identify TheHero, The BigBad, and everyone in-between by their "actor." It also offers the potential to have an "actor" [[PlayingAgainstType Play Against Type]].

Such troupes are what are known as "Star Systems": a collection of AnimatedActors who play different "roles" in different "productions," just as RealLife actors would. In fact, this [[UsefulNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfHollywood used to be the way it worked in Hollywood]]; actors would be signed to a studio, not a production, and would appear in production after production with the studio's other stars. Taken far enough, this might be a VirtualCelebrity.

Note that this trope falls much more towards the CastOfSnowflakes end of the character design spectrum, trying to shy away from OnlySixFaces. While a body of works of a particular artist may have reused designs over the course of several works, each individual work tends to be a CastOfSnowflakes; conversely, multiple works of an artist featuring characters who all look alike simply reinforces the notion of OnlySixFaces.

Compare UniversalAdaptorCast, which is much more explicit that these are the same characters in a different setting.

----!!Examples:

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[[folder:Anime and Manga]]* The former TropeNamer here is taken from the Star System, the name given to the collection of characters who features prominently throughout the career of Creator/OsamuTezuka. These characters include:** Shunsaku Ban - Featured as a detective in ''Anime/{{Metropolis}}'', a teacher in ''Anime/AstroBoy'', and just about everything else in between. Noticeable for his long, bushy moustache; an early dub of ''Astro Boy'' gave him the name "Mr. Mustachio", and he retained it as a nickname when some of the comics were translated to English (since it's fairly close in meaning to his Japanese nickname, Hige Oyaji). Ban is probably Tezuka's most recurring star, save for Gourdski, appearing in nearly all his works, from as early as ''Metropolis'', to as late as ''Manga/{{Buddha}}''.*** Tezuka fan Creator/NaokiUrasawa used the Shunsaku Ban design, modified to his own style, for Dr. Reichwein of ''Anime/{{Monster}}''. And again in ''Manga/{{Pluto}}''.** Acetyle Lamp - Short, stocky bald guy with a pencil moustache and a dent in the back of his head. Usually plays a cowardly, two-faced con man and other dishonest types; Tezuka frequently draws a lit candle sitting in the dent.** Duke Red - Noticeable for his big hooked nose; often appeared as a villain.** Hamm Egg - Another recurring villain; medium height and gangly, with a thin, curled moustache. Probably most infamous as the hunter who orphaned ''Kimba the White Lion''.** Rock Holmes - A "tough guy" character with shiny black hair; started out as an upstanding heroic lead, but in Tezuka's later works, he is usually a particularly cruel villain, providing the equivalent of an actor reinventing his persona.** Gourdski / Patch-Gourd - Tezuka's "trademark", and a gag-item/character; a small, pig-like, patched-together gourd.** Professor Ochanomizu - A large-nosed, heavy-set professor, dubbed Professor Elephun in an early dub of ''Anime/AstroBoy'', Prof. Ochi is almost always portrayed as a learned, wise man.** Hosuke Sharaku - A small bald kid with a bandage on his forehead. Originally from ''Manga/TheThreeEyedOne''. Usually a good guy (when with his bandage).** Saruta - Looks like Ochanomizu, but differs in that his nose is usually covered with acne scars, and he sports a beard.** Notarin - Bears a vague resemblance to Shunsaku Ban, mostly thanks to his short but extremely bushy facial hair. Where Shunsaku is balding, Notarin is ''completely'' bald; Notarin is also fatter, shorter, and has beadier eyes. Frequently plays an ObstructiveBureaucrat.** Tawashi - A very tall, very thin man with a long nose and a mustache that looks like the bristles of a broom. Probably best known as a detective or police chief.** Atom - ''Astro Boy'' himself appears in different roles in a couple of Tezuka's works. Most notably, he makes a cameo in one series as little boy who ends up getting stabbed. Tezuka wanted to shock readers by presenting Astro as a human instead of a robot in this story and having him bleed to death; the response from readers was tremendous, and the story remains controversial.** Osamu Tezuka - Tezuka often drew a caricature of himself into his stories: a thin man with thick glasses and a bulbous nose, wearing a beret and usually smoking a cigarette. When he wasn't representing the author and speaking directly to readers, he would play a down-on-his-luck artist or similarly pathetic figure. (One memorable appearance depicts him in a jacket with the words "What am ''I'' doing here??" written in Japanese on the back.)** The only real exception: When Manga/BlackJack appears, it is almost always as himself.*** Tezuka actually kept a list of how much money the actors in his "troupe" were paid for each "performance." He would periodically give them "raises" or "pay cuts" based on their popularity with fans. It was his whimsical way of keeping track of what characters his readers liked.* Creator/HayaoMiyazaki also has accumulated a fairly large number of recurring castmembers, though, unlike Tezuka, they have no set names (at least, none known to the public). Some of the most notable include:** [[Anime/FutureBoyConan Lana]] - The female lead in nearly all of Miyazaki's works; she stars (via various "ages") as Manga/{{Nausicaa|OfTheValleyOfTheWind}}, Anime/{{Kiki|sDeliveryService}}, [[Anime/PrincessMononoke San]], [[Anime/CastleInTheSky Sheeta]], [[Anime/MyNeighborTotoro Satsuki]], and [[Anime/HowlsMovingCastle Sophie]], as well as nearly every major female role in anything else Miyazaki has done.** [[Anime/FutureBoyConan Conan]] - Miyazaki's 2nd most prominent character features as the male lead in many of Miyazaki's films, and is almost always the romantic interest to the female lead. He has played (again, through various physical ages): [[Manga/NausicaaOfTheValleyOfTheWind Asbel]], [[Anime/CastleInTheSky Pazu]], [[Anime/PrincessMononoke Ashitaka]], [[Anime/HowlsMovingCastle Howl]], [[Anime/KikisDeliveryService Tombo]], [[Anime/SpiritedAway Haku]]; it should be noted that his face is often given more attention to the "harshness" or "softness" of its appearance than Lana's, so as to befit his current character more.** [[Anime/CastleInTheSky Dola]] - Introduced in ''Castle in the Sky'', she has appeared over the years as bit characters, but recently starred as Old Sophie in ''Anime/HowlsMovingCastle''.** [[Anime/SpiritedAway Kamaji]] - Originally introduced as the old engineer of Dola's ship in ''Castle in the Sky'', as well as Dola's husband, he was given a name in his role in ''Spirited Away''. He is recognizable for his sunglasses and extremely large mustache (some people think he inspired [[SonicTheHedgehog Dr. Robotnik/Eggman]]).** [[Anime/MyNeighborTotoro Mei]] - Miyazaki's end-all-be-all toddler girl. It's somewhat insinuated visually that Sen of ''Spirited Away'' is a much older Mei, rather than a very young Lana. Alternatively, she's a very young [[Anime/KikisDeliveryService Ursula]]. She's perhaps best known for her starring turn as the title character in ''Anime/{{Ponyo|On The Cliff By The Sea}}''.** [[Anime/SpiritedAway Yubaba]] - A relative newcomer to the Miyazaki gallery, she seems to always be represented as a witch with an extremely large head. She also appeared in ''Howl's Moving Castle''.** [[Anime/CastleInTheSky Charles]] - A fairly regular comic-relief character; most notably appeared as one of the Ironworks' men in ''Princess Mononoke'', aside from his supporting role in ''Castle in the Sky''.** [[Anime/CastleInTheSky Shougun Mouro/General]] - A balding/bald general, featured in ''Castle in the Sky'', ''Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind'', and ''Princess Mononoke'', as well as cameo parts in several other works involving either police or the military.** [[Anime/FutureBoyConan Lepka]] / [[Anime/CastleInTheSky Muska]], the square-jawed megalomaniac BigBad.** Soot Spirits - Introduced in ''Anime/MyNeighborTotoro'', but have also been featured in other Miyazaki works, most notably ''Spirited Away''.* Although criticized heavily for [[OnlySixFaces a distinct lack of differentiated female character designs]], Creator/LeijiMatsumoto has nevertheless made his own System, small though it may be. Major players are:** [[Anime/CaptainHarlock Harlock]] - Matsumoto's most notable and famous character, most of Matsumoto's male leads bear a striking resemblance to Harlock, especially his trademark hairstyle.** [[Anime/QueenEmeraldas Emeraldas]][=/=][[GalaxyExpress999 Maetel]]- Visually, they stand as the archetype for nearly... scratch that - ''every one'' of Matsumoto's female actresses, period. Scenes involving more than three of Matsumoto's females often leads to insane confusion, at no fault to Emeraldas and/or Maetel themselves. Some installments go as far as to declare them (twin) sisters.** [[Anime/SpaceBattleshipYamato Analyzer/ IQ-9]] - Matsumoto's standard RobotBuddy design. He swiftly suffered ChuckCunninghamSyndrome in ''Anime/CaptainHarlock'', but managed to reappear in another "role" in ''Cosmo Warrior Zero''.** [[Manga/GalaxyExpress999 Tadashi Daiba]] also makes frequent appearances, usually as a young, upstart young man who grows and matures over the course of the series.* Hiroyuki Takei of ''ShamanKing'' directly referenced this trope when the U.S. Shonen Jump interviewed him and asked him about Anna Kyouyama's appearances in ''Shaman King,'' ''Butsu Zone'' and ''Itako no Anna.''* Akira Toriyama has designed so many characters that he tends to forget what he's done and hasn't done, and thus will occasionally create the same character multiple times. The most obvious examples: [[VideoGame/ChronoTrigger Crono and Lucca]] are [[Franchise/DragonBall Goku and Bulma]] A more obscure, but even more clear example is the star of his children's book "Toccio the Angel", who happens to look almost identical to Majin Buu.** A particularly notable instance would be Tsun Tsukutsun from ''Manga/DoctorSlump'' and Yamcha from ''Manga/DragonBall'', with Yamcha looking identical to Tsukutsun after having a haircut.** Comparing ''Franchise/DragonBall'', ''Franchise/DragonQuest'' and ''VideoGame/ChronoTrigger'' character designs reveals many similar "archetypes" reminiscent of Android 18, Bulma, Gohan, Pan, Trunks, the Nameks, etc. There are similar designs for characters who are fat or short and have a thick chin or mustache, heroes who wear goggles or a headband, heroes with long spiky hair, young male or female heroes, aliens, dragons, devil characters. The hero of ''Kenshin Dragon Quest'' doesn't look too different from his ancestor Roto. The heroes of ''VideoGame/DragonQuestV'' and ''VideoGame/DragonQuestVIII'' look similar. There are about four or five types of faces for female characters.* [[Franchise/{{Nasuverse}} Kinoko Nasu]] seems to have this really nasty habit of re-using not only character appearances, but also backstories and roles. His first project was ''[[LightNovel/KaraNoKyoukai Garden of Sinners]]'', and later, when he made ''VisualNovel/{{Tsukihime}}'' and ''VisualNovel/FateStayNight'', he re-used a lot of character modelings, backstories, personalities, and had his characters go through similar events. The ''Tsukihime'' and ''Garden of Sinners'' protagonists having the Death Line eyes, a villain infatuated with the primary girl character, a girl who suffers [[RapeAsBackstory sexual abuse]] and [[RapeAndRevenge makes her assailants pay for it]], the list goes on and on. He did this, (albeit to a ''very'' lesser extent) while making ''Anime/{{Canaan}}'' as well.* ''Manga/{{Hellsing}}'''s manga-ka Kouta Hirano reused some of the character designs when making his next project drifters. [[http://browse.deviantart.com/?qh=§ion=&q=drifters+motivational#/d2f27j3 There's even a motivation poster about it]].** And then there's the fact that Hellsing's characters were already reused version of characters from some of short hentai manga that he made before he started working on Hellsing.* Creator/MasamiKurumada, creator of ''Anime/BtX'', ''Manga/SaintSeiya'', and a number of series not as well-known in the states usually has a few key designs as well, mainly from recycling characters from his first work, ''Ring ni Kakero''. He subverted this in ''Saint Seiya'', however, when Unicorn Jabu was given a design similar to the hero's rival in Ring ni Kakero, only for him to play a minimal role in the actual series.** He also likes to play around with personality. Take Shun, TheFettered, emotional, ReluctantWarrior of ''Manga/SaintSeiya'', and compare him with the previous character to use the design, ''Fuma no Kojiro'' 's Kirikaze - a cold, restrained ninja who never hesitated to kill when called to.* Creator/NaokiUrasawa plays with this, by casting the pacifist, good-with-children Epsilon in ''Manga/{{Pluto}}'' with his Johan design from ''Manga/{{Monster}}''. There's also the nameless killer of Kenji's sister's fiancee in ''Manga/TwentiethCenturyBoys'' who resembles Johan with brown hair.** Shogun looks like Martin with longer hair.** There's also the retroactive case of Dr. Reichwein of ''Monster''. Being a Tezuka fan, Urasawa decided to pay homage to Shunsaku Ban with the psychologist's character design. Of course, then ''Manga/{{Pluto}}'' (and therefore Shunsaku) comes along...** [[Manga/BillyBat Kevin Yamagata]] resembles [[Manga/{{Pluto}} Sahad]] who is a dead ringer for [[Anime/{{Monster}} Karl Neumann]].** Dr Abullah is the persian cousin of God.** Heckel from ''Monster'' shows up in a minor role in ''Manga/TwentiethCenturyBoys''.** Nina from ''Monster'' and Sahad from ''Manga/{{Pluto}}'' have the same professor.*** And Nina looks strikingly similar to [[Manga/TwentiethCenturyBoys Kanna]] herself.* Manga/GoNagai also does this, which probably helps when you've made hundreds of manga.** Abashiri Daemon - originally from ''Abashiri Ikka'', also appears in ''Manga/CuteyHoney'' and ''UFO Robot Grendizer''.** You may see similiarities between many of his protagonists - for example Mondo from ''Guriella High'' looks almost exactly like [[Manga/{{Devilman}} Akira Fudou]].* Several characters from the works of Creator/MasamiObari. Examples include Gowcaizer, Hishizaki Shaia and Son Karin from ''VideoGame/VoltageFighterGowcaizer'' and Tachibana Mizuki from ''Manga/{{Gravion}}'', all of whom show up in ''Angel Blade''.* In ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion'', Shinji is Nadia from ''Anime/NadiaTheSecretOfBlueWater'', except with short hair, Akagi is Electra with her hair down, and Fuyutsuki is Lord Gargoyle. Oh, and Kensuke is basically a brown-haired Jean.* In ''Lifeguard'', many of the same 'characters' appear as in ''Manga/HayateTheCombatButler''. This is also likely to be the case with the original story of Hinagiku and Yukiji's backstory, which was originally planned to be the story ''Hayate'' became.* Some of female protagonists from Creator/JunjiIto stories looks almost identical, like [[Manga/HellstarRemina Remina]] and [[Manga/{{Gyo}} Kaori]].* Adachi Mitsuru has created numerous unrelated short stories since 1978 featuring a small repertory company of a dozen or so characters. Originally published as standalone stories in various manga magazines they have since been compiled into a four volume collection ''[[http://www.mangafox.com/manga/short_program/ Short Program]]''.* The ''Anime/{{Pokemon}}'' anime actually did this with crowd shots.* Watch ''Manga/{{Detective Conan}}'' enough, and you'll start to notice that a lot of the characters/suspects look like ones from past episodes.** Shinichi's design itself was originally an example of this, being a reuse of [[Manga/MagicKaito Kaito]]'s design, but CanonWelding retroactively turned each into the other's IdenticalStranger instead.* Creator/RumikoTakahashi has a general style for her characters, but they are generally easily differentiated. That is, however, until you compare two of her works side-by-side. Only certain characters, such as [[Manga/UruseiYatsura Ataru Moroboshi]] and [[Manga/RanmaOneHalf Genma Saotome & Soun Tendou]] really stand out among the recurring casts.** [[Manga/UruseiYatsura Lum]] is [[Manga/RanmaOneHalf Shampoo]].** [[Manga/RanmaOneHalf Ranko / Female Ranma]] is [[Manga/{{Rinne}} Sakura]].** [[Manga/UruseiYatsura Ryunosuke]] is [[Manga/RanmaOneHalf Ranma]], fitting as her character concept was the prototype for Ranma's.** [[Manga/RanmaOneHalf Ryouga]] is Manga/InuYasha is Rinne. * ''Manga/FullmetalAlchemist'' is widely lauded as a masterpiece, both for story but also for the [[CastOfSnowflakes amazing variety of character designs, to the point that dozens of characters wearing identical outfits are easily recognizable at a glance]]. Compare FMA to ''Manga/SilverSpoon'', however, and you see that even Arakawa reuses character designs (though ''Silver Spoon'' uses mostly bit and supporting characters from FMA for the main cast, rather than reusing Ed, Winry, Mustang, and Hawkeye.)** And then she did the new adaptation of ''Anime/TheHeroicLegendOfArslan''. It can be jarring how much her Arslan looks like Edward, particularly considering their drastically different personalities. * Creator/YoshihiroTatsumi uses a star system as well, the most notable star is a character who is all over his short stories and later played ''Hiroshi'' in his autobiography ''Manga/ADriftingLife''.* Takashi Yanase often did this with some of characters from both {{Franchise/Anpanman}} and Anime/MightyCatMaskedNiyandar. Some of these include:** Ginko was based after Dokinchan, which was then carried over to Shiratama-san. (Which is HilariousInHindsight as Dokinchan has a crush on the latter.)* [[WhatCouldHaveBeen Before it was scrapped]], Creator/KenAkamatsu was hired to draw a manga of ''VideoGame/ThreadsOfFate''. A number of its character designs can be seen transmigrated to his manga ''Manga/MahouSenseiNegima''. Most obvious are Negi having elements of Rue, and Anya being a dead ringer for [[{{Tsundere}} Princess Mint]].* In ''Manga/ZatchBell'', Dufaux, the bookreader of [[EvilTwin Zeon]], is an Expy of an unused design of Kiyomaro Takamine. Similarly, Ted bears a strong resemblance to one of the original designs of Gash.* Jinsei Kataoka, the artist of ''Manga/DeadmanWonderland'', has reused Toto's design at least twice: Amano from ''Manga/{{Livingstone}}'' looks like him with blond hair, blue eyes, and a different outfit; the main character of Kamisama Permanent takes it a step further by adding glasses and a star on his cheek along with the palette swap and outfit change, but is still recognizably the same design.* Nitori from ''Manga/WanderingSon'' looks near identical to the protagonist of the mangaka's earlier manga, ''Inhabitants of the Threshold''. You probably won't notice at first due to the [[ArtEvolution very different art styles]], but she lampshaded it when she drew them in the first omake of ''Wandering Son''.[[/folder]]

[[folder:Comic Books]]* Tony Harris makes extensive use of photo-referencing in his artwork. The difference between him and Greg Land, another artist who's well known for referencing works without permission is that Harris uses paid models and bases his work off the photos instead of tracing, and gives proper credit when he does use them. By paying the models for their time and taking photos himself (or paying a photographer either to take the photos or for use of photos already taken), he legally has access to those likenesses to use for reference. Greg Land's use of images from magazines and the internet, without permission of the photographers who took the pictures, leaves him wide open for charges of copyright infringement if one of those photographers wished to press the issue.** By the same token, Alex Ross. The problem arises when you realize [[ComicBook/ExMachina Mitchell Hundred]] looks kinda like Starman...* Robert Crumb does this a lot, openly and without irony. Sometimes this is highlighted on the opening page of a strip, with names and thumbnail portraits of the characters appearing. It can be a little jarring when more "cartoony" characters (e.g., dots for eyes, CheekyMouth) appear in their original styles alongside more "realistic" ones.* European MickeyMouse comics do this in-Universe. Several comics are about {{Goofy}} telling Mickey about his draft for his new novel (Goofy is an amateur writer in those comics), in which the main character [[AuthorAvatar always looks like Goofy]], his sidekick or occasional DecoyProtagonist always looks like Mickey, and if there is going to be a villain, he will look like {{Pete}}.** They also play this trope straight, using the same method the old cartoon shorts do of putting Mickey, Donald, and Goofy (and their supporting casts) in different roles. Some of these roles are recurring, resulting in multiple comic universes, where Mickey might play a wizard in a fantasy world, a hard-boiled noir detective, or a {{Tintin}}-like modern day adventurer.*** Lampshaded in the detective stories, which sometimes began with Mickey sitting down in a movie theater to watch himself play a private eye.* Creator/JasonShiga has a handful of different characters that appear across his various works. For a particularly odd example, the main character and his love interest in ''ComicBook/EmpireState'' appear in his most recent work, ''Demon'' [[CastIncest as a father and daughter]] (sort of. [[MindScrew It's complicated]]).[[/folder]]

[[folder:Films -- Animated]]* Franchise/DisneyAnimatedCanon** Some of the earlier Disney films were pretty guilty of this, particularly the use of Disney/{{Bambi}}'s mother in ''Disney/TheSwordInTheStone'', ''Disney/TheJungleBook'', ''Disney/TheRescuers'' and ''Disney/BeautyAndTheBeast''.** In ''Disney/TheJungleBook'', the Jungle Patrol elephants are based on the elephants from the animated short ''Disney/GoliathII''. The elephant Colonel Hathi is based on the elephant Goliath I.** In ''Disney/RobinHood'', Sir Hiss resembles Kaa in ''Disney/TheJungleBook''. Prince John resembles King Leonidas in ''Film/BedknobsAndBroomsticks''. The most blatant example is Little John, basically Baloo from ''Disney/TheJungleBook'' with clothes and a different fur color.** In ''Disney/TheLittleMermaid'', Ariel's design is similar to one of the mermaids in ''Disney/PeterPan''.** In ''Disney/TheGreatMouseDetective'', Basil resembles Water Rat of ''Disney/TheAdventuresOfIchabodAndMrToad''.** Some Disney movies and shows do this intentionally as {{Shout Out}}s to earlier films, such as a beaver in ''Disney/LadyAndTheTramp'' resembling Gopher from ''Franchise/WinnieThePooh'', as well as the Old Lady Squirrel in ''Disney/TheSwordInTheStone'', and a gopher appearing in an episode of ''WesternAnimation/GoofTroop''. The design of the Little Girl Squirrel in ''Disney/TheSwordInTheStone'' resembles ''WesternAnimation/ChipAndDale''. A fairy resembling Tinkerbell appears among the Fair Folk in ''Disney/TheBlackCauldron''.** The Weasels in ''[[WesternAnimation/{{Goofy}} How to Be a Detective]]'', ''Disney/MickeysChristmasCarol'', ''Disney/ThePrinceAndThePauper'', ''WesternAnimation/DuckTales'', ''WesternAnimation/HouseOfMouse'' and the Toon Patrol in ''Film/WhoFramedRogerRabbit'' are similar to the Weasels in ''Disney/TheAdventuresOfIchabodAndMrToad''.** Anna and Elsa from ''Disney/{{Frozen}}'' have similarities to Rapunzel of ''{{Disney/Tangled}}'', however just how similar is [[BrokenBase a point of contention]] with fans.[[/folder]]

[[folder:Literature]]* Creator/TerryPratchett tends to use his ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' version of [[TheGrimReaper Death]] in his other books; there's subtle variations depending on the culture being represented, but Death will always have [[foldercontrol]]

[[folder: his characteristic accent ]].* In ''Literature/AliceInWonderland'''s sequel ''Literature/ThroughTheLookingGlass'', Lewis Carroll included the characters Hatta and Haigha, who acted a lot like the Mad Hatter and the March Hare.** The Tenniel illustrations are very much the Hatter and the Hare in new costumes; Hatta is even wearing the Hatter's topper with its advertising card.[[/folder]]

[[folder:Newspaper Comics]]* Gary Larson did this in ''ComicStrip/TheFarSide''. Lampshaded in one comic, where he goes over all of his "actors", including the cow, the nerdy kid, and the woman with glasses and a beehive hairdo. Note that while they all appear in one work, they're usually seen in different roles.[[/folder]]

[[folder:Video Games]]* Kenji Eno did this with the video games ''D'', ''Enemy Zero'', and ''D2''.* ''Skip Ltd.'' has Tao the dog. He's a dog with a black-and-white face, and he appears in various roles in Skip games--from the family pet in ''VideoGame/ChibiRobo'' to a lazy BigEater in ''CaptainRainbow.'' He even has a cameo in the Skip-developed WiiWare game ''VideoGame/SnowpackPark'' as the first mask you find! He was based on a real dog owned by the company founder, but the real dog, sadly, died in 2009. (He lives on in games, though.)* Creator/HideoKojima likes to play with this. ** Meryl Silverburgh (a female soldier with a hidden feminine side) was originally a character from ''VisualNovel/{{Policenauts}}'', but a younger version of her is also in ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid'' as Snake's love interest. ** Pettrovich Madnar, a Russian mad scientist who develops robots, was ported from ''VideoGame/MetalGear'' to ''VisualNovel/{{Snatcher}}'' and back again to ''VideoGame/MetalGear2''. ** Peter Stillman in ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid2'' was originally supposed to be Ed Brown from ''VisualNovel/{{Policenauts}}'', but Kojima decided against it at the last moment (although their character designs and personalities remain extremely similar), and instead had Ed and his partner Jonathan as soldiers backing up Meryl in ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid4''. ** There's also Metal Gear itself, which is a huge nuclear robot in ''VideoGame/MetalGear'', gets ported to ''VisualNovel/{{Snatcher}}'' as Gillian's sapient RobotBuddy, Metal Gear Mk. II, which was then taken back to its home canon in ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid4'' where it acts as backup for Snake, controlled by Otacon. To play into the joke, there's a sequence in ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid4'' in which Kojima dresses Snake up as Gillian.** Jonathan Ingram shares the same body as Gillian Seed. This is poked when Napoleon mentions this.* Game director Swery of ''VideoGame/DeadlyPremonition'', ''VideoGame/SpyFiction'' and ''Videogame/{{D4}}'' does this with the character Forrest Kaysen, who always sports the same general appearance and name (although spellings may differ), starting from the [=PS2=] game ''Extermination'' where all the computer systems are from Forrest Electronics. [[spoiler:Kaysen is also always evil and tends to die messy deaths.]]** Other than Forrest Kaysen, General Douglas Lysander made an appearance in ''Spy Fiction'' as a Revolver Ocelot Expy, and then later appeared again in ''Deadly Premonition'', not as an antagonist, but a scrapyard owner who seems to have an ominous past. Said ominous past [[spoiler: does not involve the events in the game at all, and turns out to be war stories about a "Crybaby Timothy", whom he claimed to hate. After getting all of the parts necessary to fix your car, he reveals [[SurvivorGuilt why he always wears a Sargeant Uniform and not a General]]'s]].* ''VideoGame/RhythmHeaven'' manages to do it in its own series by having mini-games in later games feature characters from previous games, as though it were a cast of characters performing different mini-games.* Several of the characters of ''VideoGame/AnarchyReigns'' are borrowed from ''Videogame/MadWorld'', the most obvious being protagonist Jack Cayman. This also includes the Black Baron (now the Blacker Baron), Mathilda and even bosses like Rinrin.* Kyousuke of ''VisualNovel/LittleBusters'' is a clear reference to Yoshino Yuusuke from ''VisualNovel/{{Clannad}}'', down to general appearance, hairstyle, voice actor, and charismatic hammy personality. The characters are totally distinct, though, if only in their place in the story - Kyousuke is one of the most important characters in all of Little Busters, second only to the protagonist and main girl, while Yoshino Yuusuke is a one-note minor character.* ''VideoGame/SamuraiWarriors 3'' ended up being this for both ''VideoGame/PokemonConquest'' in general, and ''Toukiden'' in the case of [[https://www.facebook.com/koeigames/posts/10152084137766163 Akechi Mitsuhide specifically]].* MobilePhoneGame ''Summoners War'' and ''Pocket Three Kingdoms'' both use the same character designs.* Many of the characters in the ''Franchise/TalesSeries'' end up looking very similar to each other between games, like [[VideoGame/TalesOfPhantasia Dhaos]] and [[VideoGame/TalesOfGraces Richard]], [[VideoGame/TalesOfSymphonia Genis]] and [[VideoGame/TalesOfPhantasia Fulein]], [[VideoGame/TalesOfDestiny Rutee]] and [[VideoGame/TalesOfBerseria Velvet]], or [[VideoGame/TalesOfDestiny Leon]] and [[VideoGame/TalesOfXillia Jude]], to name a few.* Some of the LucasArts point-and-click adventure games tend to reuse animated character sprites in different games, sometimes across franchises. The Stuckey's store clerks from ''VideoGame/SamAndMaxHitTheRoad'' are all [[VideoGame/DayOfTheTentacle Bernard Bernoulli]] clones, for instance. ''Day of the Tentacle'' actually used it in-universe to indicate [[GenerationXerox an implied family resemblance]] across a few centuries.[[/folder]]

[[folder:Webcomics]]* Creator/DavidGonterman has a few he loves to recycle... most, scratch that, all of them are some form of self insert.** Scarlet Foxfire - The sentient alien/biomechanical fursuit.** Jim Goodlow - Appears as a cartoonist once, the other time as a StraightGay cop. He's the guy in Scarlet. ([[{{Squick}} Ick]])** Adam Packbell - A magical boy, teen or young man whose powers either come from MagicTheGathering-esque spells, or being a [[Literature/PeterPan Lost Boy]]. He usually has a coffee addiction and a fetish for robot girls.** Pippikin - A bunny fursuit much like Scarlet. He typically appears as a villain who takes over the minds of his hosts and engages in sexual debauchery, but has one incarnation where he's good.** Davey/Eric/Etc Crockett - The standard [[MarySue self insert]] of infamy. Typically ends up thrown into another world, and becomes MightyWhitey or a furry or both.** There's also an android SexBot that he reuses with a variety of names.* Some of the main characters of ''Webcomic/CuantaVida'' will have small parts in the author's next comic, ''Webcomic/ThisIsTheWorstIdeaYouveEverHad!'', which, in turn, has revamped characters from her first ([[OrphanedSeries abandoned]]) comic, ''The Rift''.** Most of them are also focus characters for ''Webcomic/SinParase''.* Characters in [[Website/KiwisByBeat Ryan Armand's]] various comics tend to look very much alike, possibly due to GenericCuteness.[[/folder]]

[[folder:Western Animation]]* The animated short ''Disney/GoliathII'' features a crocodile based on Tick-Tock the crocodile from ''Disney/PeterPan'', and owls based on the owls in ''Disney/TheAdventuresOfIchabodAndMrToad'', ''Disney/{{Bambi}}'' and ''Disney/SleepingBeauty''. The design of the elephants are reused in ''Disney/TheJungleBook''.* While ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' loves to reuse character designs, one background pony in Sweet and Elite stuck out like a sore thumb since they reused ''Princess Luna's'' character model. Since the princesses have drastically different designs than the others (They actually resemble ''horses''), many fans took this as a not so subtle hint. WildMassGuessing went haywire for ''weeks''.* ''WesternAnimation/IlEtaitUneFois'' did this all the time, with all their series.** ''"Il était une fois l'homme"'' tells the entire history of humanity using the same small roster of characters taking up all the roles of famous (and not-so-famous) people who made up history, from the creation of earth all the way to a theoretical BadFuture as a final environmental aesop.** The same roster also forms the core of the expanded cast for the sci-fi animation ''Il était une fois l'espace''.* In ''WesternAnimation/TimeMasters'', the character Jaffar has the face of Lieutenant ComicBook/{{Blueberry}}.* Captain Caveman in ''WesternAnimation/CaptainCavemanAndTheTeenAngels'' looks almost identical to the Slag Brothers in ''WesternAnimation/WackyRaces'', just with eyes not covered by BlindingBangs.* It's become common for the WesternAnimation/DCUniverseAnimatedOriginalMovies to reuse designs from ''WesternAnimation/YoungJustice''. For instance, Sarah Charles from ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeagueWar'' is just a PaletteSwap of Serling Roquette, while Angela Chen from ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeagueVsTeenTitans'' is just a slightly tweaked Catherine Cobert.* In ''WesternAnimation/RobinHoodMischiefInSherwood'', Robin Hood and his gang meet two different girls with the exact same design; Eleanor in "Best of Enemies" and Gwendolyn in "Damsel in Distress".* Mumbly, who was first a detective in the 1976 season of Creator/HannaBarbera's ''WesternAnimation/TheTomAndJerryShow'', then an antagonist on ''WesternAnination/LaffALympics'', was a redesign of Muttley, Dick Dastardly's dog on ''Wacky Races''. The only differences were fur color (Muttley light green, Mumbly light blue), ears (Muttley's were black, Mumbly's were his fur color) and attire (Muttley a collar then flying helmet and scarf, Mumbly an orange trenchcoat).** Quite a few HB shows did this. In some instances, model sheets of older characters were literally traced for new ones.* Ralph Wolf from Creator/ChuckJones' ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'' series of Wolf/Sheepdog cartoons was a complete clone of Wile E. Coyote except for his nose (Ralph's was red while Wile E.'s was black). It didn't originate that way as in the first film, the wolf looked more or less like a Jones-designed cartoon wolf.* On ''WesternAnimation/TheBradyKids'', the kids' dog, Moptop, was a duplicate of [[WesternAnimation/TheArchieShow Jughead Jones' pet, Hot Dog]], save for the fur color. Moptop's [[LazyArtist animation was repurposed]] from Hot Dog as well.* Mr. Peevly from ''WesternAnimation/TheHairBearBunch'' bears a striking resemblance to Pertwee from ''WesternAnimation/WheresHuddles''.[[/folder]]----